


Just Let Me Do This

by TaraHarkon



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Heavy Angst, M/M, Necromancy, Panic Attacks, Possible Character Death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-21
Updated: 2018-06-20
Packaged: 2019-03-21 22:39:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13750662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TaraHarkon/pseuds/TaraHarkon
Summary: It seemed like an ordinary Reaper call, so why was Barry's world crashing in on him now? It had started out so simple, so why was Kravitz watching everything he'd built up slip through his fingers like grains of sand through an hourglass.When a necromancer threatens everything these two men hold dear, they'll have to work together to have any chance of survival.





	1. Chapter 1

Lup had stopped, looking up at a window display with a grin threatening to split her face in two. She reached back, grabbed Taako by the arm, and gestured wildly at the dress in the window. Barry was smiling too, until he heard a crackle and beep in his pocket. With a sigh, he pulled out his stone of farspeech.

“Barry here.”

Lup looked over, a little frown on her face. He shrugged helplessly and waved for them to go in the store. He'd be done soon. Taako didn't need to be told twice.

“Come on, Lulu. Let's go see if they've got that number in black.”

“We won't go far, Bar. Come on in when you're done, okay?”

Barry nodded, his eyebrows knit in concentration as he listened to Kravitz.

“Anyway, Barry, I'm at a bit of a loss. I've dealt with the necromancers but there had been evidence of a lich prior to now and I can't make heads or tails of this ritual. So I thought perhaps...”

Barry sighed and gazed through the window of the store, watching Lup laugh at something Taako had said.

“As long as it doesn't take too long. I know work is important and all, Kravitz, but Lup and Taako are going to be pissed if we miss their birthday dinner.”

Kravitz went quiet and Barry grinned.

“Did you forget?”

“No...” but Kravitz’s tone wasn't fooling anyone. He had trouble with remembering living people things from time to time. “I just want you to look at this before I dismantle it, in case there's a trap I'm not seeing or maybe you recognize what they were trying to cast.”

“Yeah, sure. Lemme just let them know where I'm going.”

* * *

 

Lup wasn't exactly happy about Barry having to go to work, especially not on her birthday, but she also wasn't about to argue the terms of their continued existence outside of Spooky Jail.

“I won't be long, and maybe I can drag Kravitz back with me for Taako.”

"I know, Bear, I know. Just call me when you're done and I'll let you know where we got to, alright?" She kissed him and for a moment they just stood there, Barry with his arms around Lup and Lup resting her hands on his chest. Then she smiled. "Now get going so you can back sooner, babe."  
  
He laughed and kissed her again.  
  
"You got it, Lup."  
  
He waved to Taako on his way out the door. Barry very nearly walked into a Tiefling on the way out. For the briefest of moments, some sense in him screamed danger but when he looked around, it passed. With a shrug, Barry went out the door and back onto the streets of Neverwinter. He just needed to find an alley or something, then he could step through the Astral Plane to where Kravitz was and get this consultation over with.  


* * *

Kravitz looked up as Barry stepped out of the rip in the air, his scythe still in hand.  
  
"Wow, Kravitz, this place smells like my lab in college." He stopped, the grin on his face slowly fading. "Is...is that the ritual you wanted me to look at?"  
  
Kravitz sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.  
  
"Do you say things like that to make me uncomfortable or are you just wholly unaware of how that sounds?"  
  
"It actually wasn't all that bad, I just...you know, on the first day, sort of dropped this jar full of formaldehyde and....you know what, nevermind. That's not important." Barry took a few steps towards the ritual circle, a frown crossing his face. "You didn't like...touch this, right?"  
  
"Not in the slightest." Kravitz crossed his arms over his chest. "Why?"  
  
"Because the alignment here doesn't make any sense. Not for this world, anyway." He said the last part in an undertone, frown deepening. "Kravitz, this is going to sound crazy, but I know this spell. Fuck, I _wrote_ this spell."  
  
Kravitz took a breath. And then another.  
  
"What are you saying, Barry?"  
  
Barry knelt, pointing across the circle at the intersecting lines.  
  
"First off, the axis of this spell isn't aligned to the cardinal directions, its aligned to a celestial orientation that only exists when you have two spatial bodies in conjunction. I'll give you, you could probably convincingly use Lucretia's base as a second moon, but not in a spell this powerful. This would somehow require that you had the sun and the moon both in the sky at the same time, at the same level of...of...you know, wavelength vibration. You don't get that here. But... But...we did at home." He turned then, pointing at a particular circle of runes. "That is an energy measure. Not a siphon like you'd normally see. It's in the last three runes in the pattern. That keeps it diagnostic."  
  
"Diagnostic...Are you telling me this is diagnostic necromancy?"  
  
Barry shrugged a little.  
  
"I mean, technically yeah, but like I said, it won't work here." Barry stood up again and walked around the circle, stopping at an empty metal bowl sitting on a stand made of bone. "This is the wrong material. It won't resonate with the rest of the spell correctly." He hesitated for a moment. "Unless it's a variant that works because of the unique properties of this world?" Then he shook his head. "No...No, not as far as I know. And anyway, the rest of this isn't going to work..."  
  
Kravitz tapped his foot on the ground, impatiently waiting for Barry to finish.  
  
"Didn't you say we had somewhere to be, Barry?"  
  
"Yeah, yeah, sorry... I just... Look, Kravitz, I think we might have a problem on our hands because I know this spell so well I could and _have_ set it up in my sleep. This... This was my fucking thesis. Its...its...you know, a matter of measuring the energy in a soul to be able to perform diagnostics. You know, because there were diseases that could kill someone without any sort of physical symptom. Like, purely symptomatic in the soul. And that's not how souls work here, in this world. So there's no way that someone could have put this spell together themselves."  
  
Kravitz turned slowly to watch Barry pace back and forth.  
  
"Are you saying that whoever built this did so based on...your research?"  
  
"I'm pretty sure, yeah." Barry took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. "It's possible they got it from Lucretia's journals. You know, Fisher and all that. I don't know how much of what I said actually got written down."  
  
"But there's still the bare possibility that whoever did this stole the research from your lab." Kravitz held his hand out, his scythe appearing from the ether as his fingers wrapped around the dark wood. "We can clean this up later, I want to check-"  
  
But he was cut off as an awareness filled both of their minds. A new bounty. _Two_ new bounties. Dead without visiting the Astral Plane. There was a moment and then images and names entered their minds. Lup. Taako. Barry froze, every muscle in his body going tense, and for a moment it looked like energy was crackling just under his skin. Kravitz just stopped, his mouth open but not working. Then two scythes slashed through the air. They had to get back to Neverwinter _now._

* * *

The moment Barry set his foot back in the material plane, he ran towards the dress shop. He didn’t even bother dispelling his scythe. He slammed through the door, eyes crackling with the energy of an unstable lich being held together only be virtue of there being flesh around his magical core. Kravitz was a step behind him, scythe returned to the ether and a world more composed, but still looking around with desperation in his eyes. They both wanted that summons to have been wrong. They both knew it had to be wrong. And yet. Barry stopped short. He couldn’t do this. He already knew what he was going to see. _Fuck._ How many times had he seen Lup... A hundred years... All of them had died at least a few times. Even him and Lup. Especially him and Lup.

“Kravitz, I...”

His voice cracked hard and Barry closed his mouth. The scythe vanished from his hand. He couldn’t do this. _Fuck_. His hands were shaking. He couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t fucking... Words. He opened his mouth again and couldn’t make the words leave it.

“Barry, I need... I need help with...”

Kravitz turned around just as Barry sunk to his knees with his head in his hands. No help would be coming from that quarter. Not anytime soon. Kravitz knelt beside Taako, closing his eyes for a moment before he reached out to brush his fingers across Taako’s cheek. None of this felt real. Taako’s skin was still warm. Kravitz paused then. _Taako’s skin was still warm._ Now, Kravitz knew that a body cooled at a constant rate. He’d been around enough of them. And certainly, Taako shouldn’t have been cold yet if this had been a normal situation, but necromancy threw the rules out the window. Kravitz held perfectly still, really looking Taako over now. There it was, the slight rise and fall of Taako’s chest. Kravitz hummed a quiet note and a light formed in the air. He watched as Taako’s pupils slowly contracted. It was slow, but it was there. He turned, looking at Lup and saw that she too was breathing, if only shallowly. Kravitz turned, standing in a fluid motion.

“Barry! They’re alive!”


	2. Eyes of the Dead

Barry’s head snapped up at the words, his brain screeching to a halt as he tried to process them.  _ They’re alive. _ Was that possible? But they’d gotten the bounty. How was that possible? Unless the Raven Queen had been wrong? Barry managed to get back on his feet and close the distance between himself and Kravitz. He still couldn’t bring himself to look at the two figures lying on the floor amid the remains of their shopping. 

“You’re sure? You’re absolutely sure?”

Kravitz nodded once, slowly.

“At the very least, they’re both breathing.”

Barry knelt beside Lup, forcing himself to adopt the artificial calm he’d had to master during their century of flight. He checked her pulse first, pressing gently fingers to the vein in her neck. Closing his eyes, he waited. She absolutely had a pulse. It was faint, shallow, slow, but there. He restrained the hope that was surging up in his gut. He couldn’t afford that yet. Her breathing was the same. Faint, shallow, barely there. Barry hesitated for a moment, unable to keep down the emotions threatening to overwhelm him. If it wasn’t for the knowledge of the bounty hovering in the back of his mind, he would have sworn Lup was sleeping. Gently, he brushed her hair out of her face, taking a shaky breath.

“Kravitz, I don’t know anything like...this. I mean, maybe a sleep spell, but they’re elves. Doesn’t work. Even something like Magic Jar makes the user look...you know...dead. This is something else.”

Kravitz was quiet for too long, his gaze holding steadily on Taako’s face.

“Is there a way for you to see if their souls are present?”

Barry took off his glasses, fidgeting with them in his hands. At first, he didn’t answer. Then he looked down at Lup again and sighed a little.

“I have a way, but you’re not going to like it.”

“What exactly does that mean, Barry?”

Barry drew his wand out of his pocket, looking over at Kravitz.

“I’m a necromancer, remember? If there’s one thing I know how to work with, it’s souls.” Pause. “Okay, and bodies, I guess. But that’s not really relevant right now. So focus on the souls part.”

Kravitz tensed, his eyes locked on Barry’s wand. Barry knew perfectly well how Kravitz felt about his magic, about his specialization, about his interests. He also knew that, unfortunately for Kravitz, that knowledge set was their first best chance at making sure Lup and Taako survived this. Holding his wand so the point was just lightly rested on Lup’s sternum, Barry Bluejeans closed his eyes and began casting a spell he hadn’t cast in years, had hoped to never need to cast again, especially not on a member of his family. It should have called up a silvery mist, or in Lup’s case, should have let her know he was looking for her if she was in lich form somewhere. It did neither. Barry licked his lips, realizing they were suddenly dry.

“Kravitz, I...I don’t know where... I mean... Lup um...”

“Her soul isn’t in her body, is it?”

Barry shook his head slowly.

“No. And she’s not in lich form somewhere either. Her soul is missing. Do... Should I check Taako too?”

Kravitz brushed Taako’s hair back from his face and stayed like that for a long moment. Then he shook his head.

“No, I think we can assume they’re both in the same situation. But I’ve never seen anything like this.”

Barry started to open his mouth and then closed it again, a flicker of movement catching his attention. His head snapped up and his gaze fell on an empty section of the store. A figure hovered there for just a moment: a spectral elf with his face contorted in pain and fear. Barry would have recognized his brother anywhere. He jumped to his feet, wand still in hand.

“Taako!”

But the spectre vanished when he yelled.

“What?”

Kravitz hadn’t seen it. But Barry knew that what he’d just seen, whatever it was, it was Taako. Someone had Taako’s soul and they were hurting him. His grip tightened around his wand.

“I just saw-”

But Barry was cut off by another voice, one that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere.

“Reaper Kravitz. Reaper Bluejeans. I’m glad to see you found my little surprise. Did you like it? I thought you might, but those two disagreed. I will admit, it was a bit harder than I’d thought it would be to subdue them. But really, with a century of data, how could I fail? The twins are so...very predictable.”

Barry clenched his jaw, anger rising in him and threatening to boil over.

“Who the  _ fuck _ do you think you are, buddy?”

The voice started laughing at that, the sound deep and ominous.

“Barold J Bluejeans. As if you aren’t just as predictable as the others. A love that defined you and redeemed you. Isn’t that how it goes? Well, my esteemed colleague, you aren’t going to be able to save her this time, with or without your powers as a lich and a reaper.”


	3. How Long Do We Have?

Barry’s hands clenched and unclenched at his sides, anger rising in him.

“I’ll...I’m going to...esteemed colleague, my  _ ass _ .”

Kravitz stood slowly, his flesh melting away to reveal the skeletal form of the reaper underneath. His red eyes glowed as he looked around. When he spoke, his voice was level and clipped, the anger in him staying just beneath the surface.

“Whoever that was, they aren’t here. If they were, I would sense them. We should get Lup and Taako somewhere safe while we work on figuring this out.”

The anger fizzled out of Barry in a rush, replaced with a phrenetic humming in the back of his mind, a fizzing, roaring, rushing sense of time and immediacy. He scrubbed at his face for a moment, nodding.

“You grab Taako, I’ve got Lup. Let’s take them home and I’ll call Magnus to-”

Kravitz cut him off, already lifting Taako with a gentle care.

“Barry. That voice said... They’ve studied you. All of you. If we’re going to manage this, we’re going to have to do things they aren’t expecting. You’re going to have to behave as much unlike the IPRE as possible.”

Barry lifted Lup into his arms with care and held her close against his chest. He tried to ignore the parts of him that were remembering all the times he’d held Lup like this before, the way she would laugh and nuzzle into his shoulder, the way she would put her arms around his neck and tease him about how if he was going to keep carrying her bridal style, one of these days they should probably getting around to actually getting married. He kissed her forehead gently.

“I’ll fix this, Lup. I promise. No matter what I have to do, I’m going to get you and Taako back and I’m gonna fix this.”

* * *

With the twins settled on Lup and Barry’s bed and Kravitz on his Stone of Farspeech making arrangements with Magnus for Carey and Killian to come handle guard duty and for Magnus to go meet up with Lucretia, Barry had run down to his basement workshop. He was trying to remember where he’d seen an effect like this before. Something in that twisted image of Taako, there had been a clue. It was right there on the tip of his tongue and he couldn’t remember. Fuck, he hated that feeling. Especially now. Especially knowing that Lup was laying upstairs and she was depending on him remembering what that spell was. It was too close, too close to those years. He grabbed blindly at a book on the shelf, flipping through it while he tried to think. That had been Taako, he was certain of that. But the only spell that he knew that did something like that would have killed them.  _ Unless. _ He stopped, looking down dispassionately at his own notes from so long ago. Soul Cage was 6th level necromancy. That was some powerful shit, sure, but he knew more powerful. The trick of Soul Cage was what you could do with it once you started using it as a battery. Or as a spy. Barry clenched his jaw, grabbing a piece of scrap paper. He scribbled furiously, running the equations as he would have for home, for the way souls worked there.

“Fuck.” The word exploded out of him, his pencil falling from shaking fingers. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”

“Did you find something?”

Kravitz was standing on the stairs, once again encased in flesh. He took another step down, looking around at the books scattered over tables and the frantic notes.

“I... Fuck, yeah, I did. And it’s not good news, Kravitz.” Barry took a shaky breath, looking down at the calculations and diagrams spread out before him. “I mean, there’s some good news and some really really bad news.”

“Just give me something I can work with.”

Barry ran his fingers through his hair almost nervously, his eyes on the numbers spread out before him.

“So... that  _ thing _ I saw. Taako. His soul, I think. I recognized it. There’s a... There’s this... It’s fairly specific application of a more complex spell. The Eyes of the Dead. Basically, what it does is you send the enslaved soul out to scout a location that they’ve been to before and it lets you watch through their eyes, hear through their ears.”

Barry looked up again and realized that Kravitz was staring at him in horror like he was the monster and not whoever had done this.

_ “Enslaved soul?” _

The reaper’s voice was a low growl in his throat. Barry took a step back, his throat suddenly dry and his palms sweaty.

“That’s not... I mean. Maybe not exactly the best way I could’ve um... But it’s... you know...accurate. And not the important part.” He gestured at his notes again. “We’ve got a time limit and these assholes must have my notes. The ones from home. This isn’t the standard version of the spell, or they’d both be dead. I... I can’t be completely sure without doing some more measurements, but... Fuck, Kravitz, I think we only have a week.”

Barry’s hands were shaking as he looked back at the Reaper. Kravitz looked pale and for a long moment, he said nothing.

“A week to get them back?”

“That uh... that’s how long their bodies can last without...” Barry exhaled hard. “And it’s an estimate. It could be anywhere from five days to two weeks. I can’t... I can’t be sure without having their original spell notes and... Fuck.”

Kravitz nodded once, slowly.

“Alright. So we assume we have five days. Tell me everything you know about this spell, Barry.”


	4. The Game We're Playing

Barry sat down hard on the floor, papers scattered around him, and looked up at Kravitz. His eyes were bleak behind his glasses and the Reaper was far more worried by the despair he saw there than anything else that had happened to them.

“The spell is called Soul Cage. Or at least... That’s the closest spell you’ve got here.” His tone had gone distant, clinical, academic. “The basic idea is that you uh... that you entrap your target’s soul in a silver cage, hence the name. From there, you can use that soul as a...as a battery, a spy, to ask them questions, or even to steal their abilities temporarily. Typically, in order to do this, you would need to... to... to kill your target. But not necessarily. As long as you have a means of removing the soul from the body, you can entrap it. Based on the evidence, that’s what happened. How they managed it with a lich... I don’t know that yet. And... And...”

It wasn’t until that point that Kravitz realized there were tears on Barry’s cheeks. How long had the man been crying?

“Barry?”

“And... fuck, Kravitz, if whoever this is could catch  _ Lup _ , what the hell am I going to be able to do? She’s the one who knows how to fight. She’s the one who’s good at this. I’m just... I’m just...”

Kravitz ran his fingers through his hair. He’d never seen Barry like this, so completely and utterly shaken off his foundation. But then again, he knew the man was a lich and he knew how unstable liches could be. He would have to handle this with caution. 

“They’re... They’re going to be fine.” 

“You can't know that.”

Kravitz approached slowly, kneeling down in front of Barry.

“From what you said, if we can get those cages and open them, then we get Taako and Lup back. Right?”

“Theoretically, yeah...”

Barry looked up and for a long moment, they looked at each other in silence. Then Barry nodded.

“I think I’ve got an idea, but you’re going to have to trust me.”

* * *

When Barry finished setting up the ritual circle, Kravitz was starting to wonder if this was a good idea. Barry took his place in the center of the circle, his wand held tightly in his grip. This was his bone wand, the one he and Lup had made one year just to see if it would work. Raising his hands, Barry closed his eyes and began to speak. It was quiet at first, a bare whisper, but slowly it grew in volume. A chill like the grave filled the room and Kravitz held out his hand for his scythe, staring at Barry in horror. Shadowed forms began to rise around the necromancer, their red eyes turned towards him.

"What is your will, master?"  
  
The whisper hung in the air like fog. It was nails on wood, hands scrabbling against a coffin lid in the dark.  
  
"Barry, you can't just-"  
  
Barry whipped around, pointing his wand at his boss, friend, and technically brother-in-law.  
  
"Kravitz, if you so much as finish that sentence, so help me. I've already lost them both once and I'm not going to sit by and do it again because of a bunch of bullshit rules about which spells in my spellbook I'm allowed to use today! If you care about Taako even half as much as you seem to, just...just let me do this."  
  
For a long moment, they stood like that. Then the scythe vanished and Kravitz turned away.   
  
"Fine."  
  
Barry turned away from Kravitz. They would deal with this later. He met the eyes of the specter he'd raised.  
  
"Find them. Tell me where they are. Do that and then be released."

The specter nodded slowly and faded. Barry let out a sigh and turned, meeting Kravitz’s eyes steadily. He still had his wand held tightly, his hand shaking. 

“Well?”

Kravitz shook his head.

“I don’t like it, but I’ll live with it. For now. As long as we get them back.”

* * *

Lup clung to the bars of the cage, raging against the silver that dared contain her. Who did these idiots think they were? To think that they could contain her and her fury a second time. Flames surged around her, biting and snapping as she tried to fight free. Red lightnings crackled over her spectral form. Then a face filled her vision and dark laughter was the only sound that Lup could hear.

“Silly little lich, don’t you understand the stakes here? Don’t you understand the game we’re playing?”

An Aasimar woman stood before her, giving her a wry grin.

“When I get out of here-”

The woman laughed, picking the cage up and giving it a shake, jostling Lup around.

“You think you’re getting out of here? I knew you were the naive twin from the Story and Song but really, you should know better. You’re never getting out of her, Lup. Not you, not Taako. And your little necromancer boyfriend isn’t coming for you either. Even if he does, he’s no match for the both of us. So you might as well give up now.”

Another voice cut in then, deep and gruff compared to this woman’s light, almost musical voice.

“Meriam, leave them alone. We have things to do. We need to set up the next phase of the spell.”

The Aasimar set the cage down with sigh and turned towards the Tiefling man who stood in the doorway.

“I’m coming, Kazimir. I’m coming. ”

Lup pulled herself back up and looked over at Taako. He was still catatonic, just as he had been other than during the brief period where he’d started screaming. She wished he was close enough that she could reach out to him. Then she saw a shadow forming in the corner, a shadow marked with red strings that she knew from experience only a lich could see. Those were the marks of Barry’s power. The shadow met her eyes, nodded once, and vanished. 

“Barry’s coming, Taako. Everything’s going to be okay.”


	5. Making a Plan

Barry spread his old map out on the table once more, using books to hold down the corners.

“Okay, here’s what we’ve got based on what my uh... my little spy had to tell us. They’re somewhere in this location. Which narrows things down a lot. There’s uh... there’s an abandoned keep there and I think that’s our target.”

He traced out a circle on the map with his magic and then looked up at Kravitz. The Reaper was leaning in with a frown.

“I’m starting to suspect something, Barry, and I need to check in with our Queen. Get as much on this as you can and I will speak to her about this situation.”

Barry nodded.

“While you do that, I’m going to work on a plan. And I’ve already got some help on the way so I think as much unlike me as possible.”

There was a knock on the door then and Kravitz nodded.

“Meet back here. And don’t do anything stupid without me.”

He cut a hole with his scythe and stepped through it into the Astral Plane. He was going to have to do some clever talking indeed to get this particular pair of bounties dropped a second time.

Barry opened the door onto a rather unlikely trio. Hurley and Sloane traveling together wasn’t unusual, sure, but for Angus McDonald to also be with them certainly was.

“Come on in and I’ll fill you in on what I’ve got so far.”

* * *

 

Reaper Kravitz walked the silent stone halls of the Eternal Stockade, making his way towards the throne room of the Raven Queen herself. Had he been anyone else, his pulse would have been hammering in his chest, but his heart rarely beat for anything other than Taako. At the thought of his boyfriend laying unmoving in the room they had claimed for their own only a few months ago, Kravitz felt a wrenching in his gut. What if his Queen didn’t accept the explanation? What if she didn’t accept that they weren’t dead? What if? What if?

He pushed the double doors open and strode towards the ebon throne of the Raven Queen and stopped at the last second, taking a knee before her.

“My Queen, I wish to speak with you regarding-“

“You question the bounty, my Reaper.” 

Kravitz flinched and then nodded.

“They aren’t dead, my Queen. Their souls were taken prisoner and their bodies are still alive.”

For a long moment, there was silence. Then the Raven Queen leaned forwards, her fingers digging into the dark throne she sat upon.

“Someone dares... My Reaper, you will stop these necromancers and bring their souls  _ to me _ .”

Kravitz bowed again, trying to keep the murderous grin from his face. That was exactly what he’d hoped she would say.

“Yes, My Queen.”

* * *

Sloane looked the map over with a little frown of concentration. There were a lot of things to consider, not the least of which was how little they knew about their opponent. Then she nodded slowly at the others around the table.

“Okay, so what we’ve got here is going to be your classic stealth mission. We don’t know their numbers so our best bet is just not to be detected. No rushing in.”

Hurley chuckled quietly and reached to tap the map.

“This looks like our best entry point, as far as getting close to the keep without being seen.”

Angus nodded slowly, going through his own notes.

“Based on what you said, Sir, I don’t think there are going to be many of them. Maybe only one necromancer, even.” All eyes were on Angus now and he adjusted his overlarge glasses. “Going back through what they’ve said so far, they’re targeting you specifically. The seven of you, I mean.”

Barry nodded.

“I mean, we’d figured that much already but uh... You really think there’s only one?”

Angus nodded slowly.

“From what you said, Sir, they’re either acting alone or they have a partner. But if they had more than that, like a cult or minions, then they would’ve sent some to distract you and Mr. Kravitz.”

Barry looked at Hurley and Sloane. They were both nodding. He took a breath.

“Okay, Ango, tell me everything you’ve got.”

* * *

Kravitz stepped out of a rift and lowered his scythe, looking around the room at the others. Hurley and Sloane had gone silent the moment the rift had opened. Barry adjusted his glasses nervously, waiting for the verdict. When Kravitz didn’t immediately speak, Barry cleared his throat.

“Did uh... Did she say... anything?”

Kravitz nodded, a slight smile coming to his lips.

“She bids us hunt the necromancers. The bounties have been removed. And... and she didn’t mention your activities.”

Barry relaxed visibly and then gestured to the table. The map had small objects on it and Angus was still leaning in to check and double check it all. He looked up then and smiled brightly at Kravitz.

“Hello, Sir! We’ve got a plan!”


End file.
